Surveillance Keeping Step with Integrating Elites: The 'Operativgruppe Moskau' of the East German Stasi

Christian Domnitz

doi:10.48261/ARPRL201813

No. 18 (2020)

ISSN:

1733-6996

eISSN:

2957-1707

Section: Articles and comparative studies: Apparatuses of Repression in Other Communist and Totalitarian Countries

Surveillance Keeping Step with Integrating Elites: The 'Operativgruppe Moskau' of the East German Stasi

Christian Domnitz

Agency of the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records, Berlin (BStU)

Bio

(1975–2015), PhD, historian and journalist. He studied history, politics and economics at the Berlin Humboldt University, including studies at the Prague Charles University. In 2003, he wrote his Master’s Thesis entitled ‘The Czechoslovak Presidential Decrees in Parliamentary Debate – a Historical Discourse Analysis’. He conducted research and held short-term research fellowships at institutes of history in Potsdam, Mainz, Cologne, Berlin, and Warsaw; gained a journalistic education and practice in Berlin, including a journalistic fellowship in Kiev. In 2011, he received his PhD with a thesis "Turning towards Europe. Reorientation and change in public opinion under state socialism 1975–1989", in which he compared discourses about Europe in socialist Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the GDR. In 2011–2015, he was a researcher at the agency of the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records (BStU), writing about the permanent Stasi outposts (Operativgruppen) in other socialist countries. In autumn 2015. he started a long-term research fellowship at the German Historical Institute in Warsaw. He died in November 2015. He is the author of numerous articles on Central European history, cultural history, and European ideas before 1989, as well as the following books: Die Beneš-Dekrete in parlamentarischer Debatte. Kontroversen im Europäischen Parlament und im tschechischen Abgeordnetenhaus vor dem EU-Beitritt der Tschechischen Republik (Berlin–Münster, 2007), also in Czech: Zápas o Benešovy dekrety před vstupem do Evropské unie. Diskuse v Evropském parlamentu a v poslanecké sněmovně Parlamentu ČR v letech 2002–2003 (Praha, 2007); as co-editor with Jose M. Faraldo and Paulina Gulinska-Jurgiel: Europa im Ostblock. Vorstellungen und Diskurse (1945–1991) (Köln, 2008); Hinwendung nach Europa: Öffentlichkeitswandel im Staatssozialismus 1975–1989 (Bochum, 2015) (Polish version: Zwrot ku Europie: transformacje sfery publicznej w realnym socjalizmie 1975-1989, Warsaw 2022); with Monika Tantzscher, Kooperation und Kontrolle. Die Arbeit der Stasi-Operativgruppen im sozialistischen Ausland (Göttingen, 2016).

Aparat Represji w Polsce Ludowej 1944-1989, No. 18 (2020), pages: 404-414

Publication date: 2023-03-29

https://doi.org/10.48261/ARPRL201813

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Abstract

This paper deals with the collaboration between the East German Stasi and the KGB. It focuses on the Stasi outpost in the USSR, the Operativgruppe Moskau, which functioned since the mid-1950s to monitor East German citizens in the USSR. It examines the development and the expanding scope of this Stasi outpost, outlines its activities and describes its limits, which were caused both by the mentality of the Stasi officers and the subordinate role of the Stasi outpost within the collaboration of the two secret services. The Operativgruppe Moskau is seen as an expression of the Stasi’s claim to control GDR citizens even beyond the GDR’s borders, and in general as an element of the cross-border surveillance in the Eastern bloc, following the growing exchange between the European socialist countries and its citizens.

Keywords

komunistyczne tajne służby • Stasi • KGB • współpraca tajnych służb • inwigilacja obywateli za granicą communist secret services • Stasi • KGB • cooperation of secret services • surveillance of citizens abroad

References

Bundesbeauftragte für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen DDR (Archives of the Federal Commissioner for Stasi Records – BStU), Berlin DDR-Staatssicherheit und sowjetischer KGB. Quellensammlung, prep. by D. Selvage, W. Süß, https://www.bstu.de/informationen-zur-stasi/quellensammlungen/das-mfs-und-die-zusammenarbeit-mit-anderen-kommunistischen-geheimdiensten/, accessed 16 Jan. 2021

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Domnitz Ch., with coll. of M.Tantzscher, Kooperation und Kontrolle. Die Arbeit der Stasi-Operativgruppen im sozialistischen Ausland (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016; Series: Analysen und Dokumente. Wissenschaftliche Reihe des BStU, 46)

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Richter W., Der Militärische Nachrichtendienst der Nationalen Volksarmee der DDR und seine Kontrolle durch das Ministerium für Staatssicherheit. Die Geschichte eines deutschen Geheimdienstes (Frankfurt a. M.: Peter Lang, 2004)

Tantzscher M., "Grupy operacyjne Stasi w krajach bloku wschodniego", Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość, 9 (2006), 43–61

Zech K.-A., "… nicht nur ein Förderinstitut". Mit der Arbeiter- und Bauern-Fakultät II Halle wurde vor 50 Jahren eine kommunistische Kaderschmiede gegründet (Magdeburg: Harz Druckerei Wernigerode, 2004; Series: Sachbeiträge des LStU Sachsen-Anhalt 33)

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0

Citation rules

Domnitz, C. (2023). Surveillance Keeping Step with Integrating Elites: The ’Operativgruppe Moskau’ of the East German Stasi. Aparat Represji W Polsce Ludowej 1944-1989, (18), 404–414. https://doi.org/10.48261/ARPRL201813

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No. 18 (2020)

ISSN:

1733-6996

eISSN:

2957-1707

Data publikacji:
2020-12-29

Dział: Articles and comparative studies: Apparatuses of Repression in Other Communist and Totalitarian Countries